Identity Resolution Daily

[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution Daily: Proud of Our Heritage

“When we examine our company’s roots, we see that our heritage is finding bad guys. That’s what David Wheeler set out to do when he saw that detectives had a critical need for better tools for criminal investigations. That is what we are beginning to do in the great State of Washington to identify businesses trying to cheat on their workers’ compensation premiums. From desktops to mainframes and everything in between, our roots have spread and have helped keep us stable as the winds of change have buffeted us about.”

Miami Herald: Workers’ compensation investigator accused of fraud

“In September, according to an arrest warrant, Vega visited Pipe Designs Inc., 7710 NW 72nd Ave., in Miami-Dade. The company did not have any workers’ compensation coverage, Vega found. Vega told owner Ronald Triana that he would lower the hefty penalty — between $27,000 and $30,000 — if Triana gave him a $2,500 money order with the payee information blank, according to the warrant.”

onestopclick: MDM ‘driving software development’

“Studies carried out by IT industry analyst Gartner indicate the necessity for firms to increase the effectiveness of their database development, while reducing costs and meeting compliance requirements, is driving the take-up of MDM technologies.”

Computing SA: IT downturn: every cloud has a silver lining

“Open source data integration, data quality, and extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) applications will flourish in these conditions because they are less costly to obtain, widely supported and constantly updated.”

opodo: Travellers reminded of Esta regulations

“Jim Forster, British Airways’ government and industry affairs manager, said: ‘The US is our biggest overseas market and we have been working hard to advise our visa waiver customers that they must apply to the Department of Homeland Security well in advance of travel.’”

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By the Infoglide Team

Windsor Star: OLG coughs up cash

“The insider policy is to guard against fraud, such as a retailer who tells a customer a ticket is not a winner and then tries to claim the prize. In the spring of 2007, a provincial ombudsman issued a scathing report on the OLG and said Ontario store owners and their families had collected tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims.”

MarketWatch: Worldwide thefts cost retailers US $104 billion annually - Survey

“This year’s survey, the most complete analysis of global shrink ever conducted, reports key findings on retail shrinkage and crime in 36 countries and on five continents, based on data from a confidential survey of 920 large retailers with combined sales of U.S. $814 billion and 115,612 operating retail outlets…’This sum represents a tax imposed on honest people by retail criminals of $229.73 per household or $71.12 for every single person in the 36 countries surveyed,’ said Professor Bamfield, Director of the Centre for Retail Research.”

Jackson Citizen Patriot: Kids learn online dangers

“Internet predators lurk on networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, or in chat rooms, looking for young victims. ‘Everybody you meet online is an Internet stranger,’ Malik Williams, an Internet-safety presenter from the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative, told more than 50 fifth-graders Tuesday at Concord Elementary School. ‘That’s why it’s important to keep yourself safe.’”

Bucyrus TelegraphForum: Bucyrus experiences rash of break-ins

“‘There is a new trend in what we call e-fencing. Thieves are selling their stolen items on the Internet versus just selling them outright. They can get up to 70 percent or more of the value if they sell on the Internet versus selling them on the streets, where they only get about 30 percent of the value,’ Teets said.”

SFGate: Ex-S.F. firefighter’s workers’ comp problem

“Indeed, if Hijjawi were trying to hide her fitness quest, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Our own Google search turned up records showing her running in marathons in Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, Honolulu and elsewhere. From 2001 to 2006, according to records on the Web site Athlinks, Hijjawi ran in no fewer than a dozen marathons. And her biography on another site shows she was taking on even bigger challenges, including the Canada 2005 Ultraman super triathlon competition - in which competitors swim 6.2 miles, ride a bike for 170 miles and run 52 miles, twice the distance of a marathon. Completing it took her more than 33 hours.”

Bunker Blog: Update On Cops Involved In Major Shoplifting Ring

“Kevin Burchell and Clifford Barber, both police officers, worked with two others, one of them an employee at the Walmart the items were taken from; to get up to $200,000.00 worth of merchandise out of the store and onto an eBay site. According to the latest report, Barber was the mastermind behind the scheme, and sold the items on eBay and to friends and acquaintances.”

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By Mike Shultz, Infoglide Software CEO

When we examine our company’s roots, we see that our heritage is finding bad guys. That’s what David Wheeler set out to do when he saw that detectives had a critical need for better tools for criminal investigations. That is what we are beginning to do in the great State of Washington to identify businesses trying to cheat on their workers’ compensation premiums. From desktops to mainframes and everything in between, our roots have spread and have helped keep us stable as the winds of change have buffeted us about.

It is with a touch of sadness that our company looks back to a time when the whole nation was shaken by an event that reminded us that the bad guys are still very much out there. Like everyone who was moved by the loss of so many and so much, we wanted to do something to help. So it is with pride that we recently witnessed a major milestone signifying the final stage in the development of Secure Flight, the nation’s new system to help prevent the events of 9-11 from ever happening again.

We were gratified to hear TSA Administrator Kip Hawley recently announce, “Secure Flight will improve security by maintaining the confidentiality of the government’s watch list information while fully protecting passengers’ privacy and civil liberties.” We could not help but feel proud knowing we have been a key part of this important program since its very beginning.

Our roots run deep, and though we remain small, we remain strong and sturdy. We don’t know what the future holds, but we are certain that as long as there are bad guys out there, we will try to be there to help. For us, you see, it’s more than just a business.

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By the Infoglide Team

Risk&Insurance: Public, private sectors muscling up for fight against comp fraud

“Mention workers’ compensation fraud and images of videographers lurking in the bushes to catch some schemer in the act of peeling off his neck brace for a game of tennis might spring to mind. That scenario outlines what is commonly known as claimant fraud.”

City Journal: How to Stop Medicaid Fraud

“For more than a decade, Medicaid has been the fastest-growing item on many state budgets. Unfortunately, state and federal efforts to uncover and stamp out the astonishing amount of fraud in the program (whose costs the states split with Washington) have lagged. Experts estimate that abuses of Medicaid eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide—a waste of $30 billion a year.”

DMReview: Why Master Data Management Is Such a Challenge?

“MDM will never be easy. No amount of technology will make it a turnkey operation. There is no single approach that will work for all - or even for most. By nature, MDM needs to be highly customized to the needs of your organization.”

SmartBrief: DHS to phase in Secure Flight program in early 2009

“As the program is phased in early next year, airlines will be required to collect additional information about their passengers — including gender and birth date — while DHS, rather than the airlines, will be responsible for matching the data against terrorist watch lists.”

Daily Insurer: California Man Nabbed in Work Comp Scheme

“Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten announced that Norman Anderson (DOB 10/10/46), of Ventura, was sentenced to serve two years in the California Department of Corrections following his felony conviction of workers’ compensation fraud. Anderson was also ordered to pay $97,425 in restitution to the victim, Signal Mutual Indemnity Association.”

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By the Infoglide Team

South Florida Business Journal: Five sentenced in $15M check cashing scheme

“The co-defendants are alleged to have run a scheme using shell companies to funnel more than $15 million through the Atlantic Check Cashing store in Pompano Beach cash-checking store to avoid paying workers’ compensation insurance premiums.”

Travel News Gazette: Secure Flight Rule Addresses Concerns of Business Travel Community

“‘The road to final implementation for Secure Flight has been a long and arduous one that has subjected too many travelers to time-consuming and embarrassing searches at our airports and other security checkpoints. We are pleased that TSA is now positioned to move forward with Secure Flight in an effective manner, and that the program will address the business travel community’s concerns as voiced by NBTA,’ commented NBTA Executive Director & COO Bill Connors, CTC.”

Data Strategy Journal: Master Data Management

“MDM is one the top three information management-related efforts for 2008 (according to our survey and a few others)…MDM is something you can really sink your teeth into as an information-managed solution that has a great value proposition.”

The Register: Schneier sticks it to surveillance

“Security guru Bruce Schneier has challenged the view that privacy and security are at loggerheads, suggesting the real debate is between liberty and control… He sees ubiquitous surveillance and measures such as identity cards tipping the balance towards the state, describing them as stepping stones towards a future where checks become less obtrusive while simultaneously more all-encompassing.”

Hub Solution Designs: MDM in Tough Economic Times

“Master Data Management projects are typically so compelling that canceling them is like ‘burning the furniture’.”

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By the Infoglide Team

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.                                                  – W. Clement Stone

We recently shared a link to an article describing how trucking companies in California illegally mislabeled their drivers as “independent contractors” in order to keep from paying workers’ compensation insurance. The law clearly defines the drivers as “employees” since the companies own the trucks and define everything the drivers do.

Because identity resolution software is often used to detect fraudulent behavior, we continually hear of instances like this one where people try to cut corners or take unfair advantage or flat out cheat other people and companies in ways that often involve obscuring identity information. People try to game software systems and cheat in areas like workers’ compensation, online commerce, lotteries, retail, airlines, insurance, social networking, and others. (You can read more on our web site and in previous blog posts here.)

Almost all of us know the right way and the wrong way to do things. Sadly, we sometimes choose to ignore that inner voice when it benefits us, even though it may harm someone else. OK, so we can’t fix the world with a blog post, but it’s hard not to speculate what the world might be like if we all tried to do the right thing all the time.

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By the Infoglide Team

Long Beach Press-Telegram: 3 more truck firms named in port probe

“In the latest cases, the companies were able to avoid paying overtime, payroll taxes, health insurance and workers’ compensation by labeling their drivers ‘independent contractors’ — a label applied to some 90 percent of truckers in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.”

All Things Data: Master Data Management and the Mid-Market Need

“Basically, the MDM Summit in New York confirmed that the process to implement a Master Data Management initiative is generally the same regardless of whether the organization is a Mid-Market company or a larger enterprise.”

SmartBrief: Homeland Security releases more details on Secure Flight program

“The Department of Homeland Security estimates 99% of passengers will breeze through security next year when federal officials take over the job of screening names provided by the airlines.”

Confessions of a database geek: Updates to the Information Quality Aggregator

“It’s great to see more activity in the data quality arena. Dylan Jones started the Data Quality Pro site, and dropped me a note with some additional blogs to consider. A couple look pretty good!”

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[Post from Infoglide] Identity Resolution at the MDM Summit

“Identity Resolution clearly plays a key role in the MDM space. Many of the conference sessions highlighted how Identity Resolution has become a key ingredient within an overall MDM solution. Without the ability to accurately match and resolve various attributes of an entity or identity, MDM solutions can’t succeed.”

CNN.com: Better air passenger prescreening expected in 2009

“Under the new program, the airlines will be responsible for collecting a passenger’s full name, gender and birth date, as opposed to the current practice of only collecting the passenger’s name. ‘We know that threats to our aviation system persist,’ Chertoff said. ‘Secure Flight will help us better protect the traveling public while creating a more consistent passenger prescreening process, ultimately reducing the number of misidentification issues.’”

B-Eye-Network: Would You Like Fries With That? And Does Cross-Selling Justify Master Data Management?

“The concept of customer data integration into a consolidated master view is appealing because there is the perception that a ‘golden copy’ of customer records enables business benefits that were unachievable in the absence of the ‘360-degree view.’”

Warrington Guardian: Benefit cheat sentenced to 240 hours community service

“Deliberately withholding information that affects your claim is stealing. We have introduced new methods of data matching – and the obvious message to benefit cheats is you will be caught.”

Jill Dyche Blog: Lessons from the SourceMedia MDM Summit

“This only proves my point that MDM’s success is often directly tied to a company’s specific definition of what it should be. Companies should know the problem(s) they’re solving before they acquire MDM.”

CarInsurance.com: Allstate Sues Companies, Alleging Claims Fraud

“Allstate Insurance has sued 13 Florida companies, including auto body shops, tow truck operators, chiropractic clinics and their owners and some policyholders, alleging the group staged at least 17 auto accidents and filed fraudulent claims.”

Evolution of Security: TSA’s Take on the Atlantic Article

“Watch-lists and identity checks are important and effective security measures. We identify dozens of terrorist-related individuals a week and stop No-Flys regularly with our watch-list process.”

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By the Infoglide Team

PR-USA.NET: Gartner Reveals Nine Fatal Flaws in Business Intelligence Implementations

“Data quality issues are almost ubiquitous and the impact on BI is significant — people won’t use BI applications that are founded on irrelevant, incomplete or questionable data. To avoid this, firms should establish a process or set of automated controls to identify data quality issues in incoming data and block low-quality data from entering the data warehouse or BI platform.”

Edmonton Journal: ‘Misplaced generosity’ led to fraud

“A former Workers’ Compensation Board case manager who received tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks is a deeply troubled woman whose “misplaced generosity” led her to overpay claimants more than $1 million, according to a defence report submitted at her sentencing hearing.”

Secrecy News: Intelligence Policy Would Reward Information Sharing

“‘We have taken a critical step toward ensuring that information sharing becomes ingrained in the way the federal government operates,’ said Amb. Thomas McNamara, the ODNI Information Security Environment program manager, in an October 6 news release.”

Retail Technology Blog: Retail theft skyrockets

“The 20th annual retail theft survey found 24 retailers, with more than 19,000 stores, apprehended a record 708,962 shoplifters and dishonest employees in 2007 and recovered more than $150 million in stolen property.”

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[Post from Infoglide] Start Early on Data Quality

“Identity resolution plays a vital role in data quality applications. Applying identity resolution on the front-end can ensure that error-filled and fraudulent identity information is detected and kept from entering production systems.”

Nashua Telegraph: Owners take on workers at issue

“In addition, the business avoided more than $368,000 in worker’s compensation insurance premiums by under-reporting the number of workers they had hired, prosecutors claim.”

Kiplinger Business Resource Center: Government to Take over Screening from Airlines

“Under a program dubbed Secure Flight, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will assume responsibility for checking passengers against a watch list of known and suspected terrorists. Currently, that job is performed by the airlines, and each one has its own process.”

CSO Security Leadership: Opposing Forces in a Down Market

“In a tightening economy, history has proven that the risks faced by businesses increase significantly. When times begin to get tough for individuals, many will turn to crime to abate their diminishing financial situations.”

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